2016 Istanbul Ataturk Airport attack

The 2016 Istanbul Ataturk Airport attack was an Islamic State terrorist attack that occurred on 28 June 2016 at the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, Turkey. Three gunmen opened fire on people at the international section of the airport before detonating their explosives, although they were unable to get past the first security checkpoint. A total of 44 people were killed and 239 injured in the attack.

Attack
Shortly before 10:00 PM on Tuesday, 28 June 2016, three men (one from Chechnya, one from Uzbekistan, and one from Kyrgyzstan) arrived at the Ataturk Airport on the European side of Istanbul. They were suspiciously dressed in cold-weather clothing to hide suicide belts that had been given to them by Akhmed Chatayev, an Islamic State leader from Chechnya who masterminded the ensuing carnage. The attackers were driven to the airport by a taxi driver, and they left the car without being checked by security. Before the attackers reached the x-ray scanner at the security checkpoint, two of the attackers opened fire. Hundreds of people hid in shops, under benches, prayer rooms, and wherever else they could find cover, and the gunmen proceeded to blow themselves up. One of them detonated his explosives in the international terminal as people ran from him; another detonated his belt in a parking lot across the street from the terminal; a third was floored by shots from a police officer, but he detonated his belt before he could bleed out (the officer who shot him managed to run to a safe distance before the explosion). The attack took just a minute and a half to unfold, and it left 44 people dead and 239 injured. The Turkish government believed the Islamic State to have been responsible for the attack, although there was no immediate claim of responsibility. Later, the BBC reported that the nationalities of the attackers had been established, and that one of the attackers was the Chechen Osman Vadinov.